The Ramifications Of Proving Its Existance

[Guest Crypto Eddie]

   I'm wondering if anyone out there has really put any thought into what may /will happen if Bigfoot's existence is proven? By this i mean its affect on the economy, politically, scientifically, and etc. If it were proven to be an actual living creature, would it halt America's logging industry in order to prevent its extinction since we would not have any actual numbers on how many are living? If that would occur, would it send our economy and housing back into another recession ? On a side note, I feel that IF the government does know the truth about Bigfoot I feel that this would be one of the main reasons to keep it a secret from the general public. 

 

  Politically, would it be considered human if DNA testing presented this? Does it mean that "human" laws would be shared with Bigfoot? Would it be legal to have relations with a Bigfoot (sick thought I know), Would killing a Bigfoot be considered murder by law? I feel that it would cause quite a stir and a lot of ethical and moral chaos among states, lobbyists, and politicians defining where Bigfoot stops being animal and starts being "human".

 

   These are just some of my thoughts and was really curious as to what others thought regarding this matter. Maybe raise further issues that have not been thought of also.  I think a lot of people are hell bent on proving its existence but not much thought has been given to what happens afterwards.

 

Food for thought.

 

 

 

[Drew]

Oooh neat question.

 

If the DNA shows human, but they don't fabricate tools, is it still human?  

 

The foot morphology alone may be enough to define it as separate from humans. 

[Guest DWA]

Well, for one thing, "proven" is only the beginning.

 

I've heard people say that "Finding Bigfoot" would be so over.  Really?  The Animal Planet network has all these shows on it about dogs and cats, horses and cows, dolphins, sharks, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! ferpetesake.  Aren't they, well, long proven?  "Finding Bigfoot" would now have passed, well, step 1, max.  Cliff and Bobo might only have taken the first steps on the road to unimagined riches and fame.  There might be 49 bigfoot shows on Animal Planet alone within a year.  To say nothing of the yeti shows; yeren shows; orang pendek shows;...etc.

 

The taxonomists might be years settling what it really is.  Eyewitnesses and habituators might contest everything they come up with.

 

Who knows how long it would take to come up with decent range maps; fill in the fossil record (which, contrary to the skeptics, already has plausible ancestors that we've found); glean all the additional information habituators and witnesses would be able to give us now that everyone's listening; oh, I could go on.  For hours.

 

We won't have close to found bigfoot when we prove it.  Not even close.

Edited September 17, 2013 by DWA

[MIB]

Crypto Eddie -

 

Yes, at least in some places those issues have been discussed.   I think many of those issues are going to have to be settled in court.  There are a lot of gray areas .. they may be close enough to use biologically that we have to reexamine what "human" means, and even if not that close, their behavior may be similar enough to ours in ways that matter that we separately have to reexamine what being "people" means.

 

Until we have more substantial evidence than we're aware of having now, we can't refine those questions or do anything more than speculate about the answers.

 

I'm not interested in proving they exist.  I'm interested in understanding what they are.   Depending on what I find, I might or might not share. 

 

MIB

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

I agree with DWA...There is no way that Finding Bigfoot or similar shows would be over. On the contrary, they would literally explode overnight. There would be MANY more people interested in watching such a program when they KNOW that such an animal is actually out there. See, people are going to be thirsting for knowledge of these animals once it is proven they exist, and there will be a huge vacuum of information. I don't expect the government to make the announcement, so even if some groups within the government know about sasquatch and have studied them, they will not relinquish that information. It will come from some non-governmental scientific group, most likely academic.

 

I have spent lots of time thinking about what you are visualizing in your post, and I will share some of my conclusions. It is no secret that I believe the sasquatch population to be increasing, and that their population is already ballooning to the point that sasquatch are being pressed closer and closer to major human habitations like cities and towns, of course IF there is adequate forest cover and food. Another important thing to realize is that logging and other industries are taking away sasquatch habitat. Maybe it is not happening at a breakneck pace, but it is happening nonetheless. So it stands to reason that discovery, and subsequent protection, of these animals will benefit them in the long run. But, I can understand why some believe that discovery will hurt these animals.

 

They reason that they are doing fine without humans at the moment, but this logic is flawed in my opinion. Why? Because we don't really know ANYTHING about the sasquatch population as a whole, except that they populate the majority of the states within the United States, areas where there are high numbers of witness sighting reports. Most evidence tells us about the animals directly, their physiology and whatnot, but as an entire population, we really don't know much at all. The only evidence that we have on this issue is that of eyewitness testimony.

 

Some say that discovery will mean that there are going to be all kinds of people out in the woods looking for bigfoot, and this could be bad for the animals themselves. But I am quite certain that killing them would immediately be deemed illegal once they are officially recognized as a new species, so we don't have to worry about that aspect. But people might disrupt their hunting and their lives in other ways, but considering how well they have done thus far, since they have yet to be scientifically discovered, I am not convinced that people COULD hurt these animals in this way. Of course we can hurt them by taking away their habitat, but besides that, hunting them is one of the only other things that would be bad for them as a whole.

 

So I firmly believe discovery will benefit their population as a whole. I suppose that I am of the mindset that the population is more important than any one of its members. This is why I support collecting a specimen, IF I KNEW for certain this would be enough to prove the existence of the species. As far as the government, I firmly believe that there are certain people, maybe small teams within certain government agencies, those that deal with wildlife and forests, who have actually studied sasquatch. However, the knowledge of the existence of these animals is not told to anyone else for the most part, and evidence for their existence is not publicized in any way, except among those directly involved.

 

Many would ask WHY a government agency would do this, and you hit on the answer in your post. Discovery could potentially pose a large threat to American industry. All industries that exist within sasquatch habitat could potentially suffer. They might not KNOW what will happen upon discovery, but it is fair to assume that something like logging would not be allowed to continue in the same manner. It is fair to assume there would be much more "red tape" than there is now. And for those who are involved in business, this is a BAD thing. And I don't need to tell US citizens just how "involved" many politicians are in business. Not directly, but they are connected via lobbyists, and therefore the welfare of the politician depends somewhat on the how well the politician can influence people involved in overseeing the sectors that their businesses take place in. But I wouldn't expect politicians such as congressmen to know about sasquatch, although it is possible. I have always just assumed that it would be smaller agencies, and would not extend outside those agencies. But then again, these government agencies have to report to somebody.

 

Think about how many military installations in the US are smack in the middle of sasquatch habitat. And then think about how well protected these military installations are. I was in the military myself, as I entered right after high school in 2004, and I can testify that bases are very secure. Especially after 2001. And the more that testing and research are done on certain bases, the more security they are likely to have. Therefore I am certain that military base cameras have caught evidence of sasquatch in the past. And this information and evidence has made its way up the chain of command, until it reached someone in the government. From there it simply expanded, in a very concealed and small manner, into clandestine research. Clandestine is a weighty word, and more likely the research was done without telling anyone. It isn't like they had to go very far out of their way to keep the information a secret. It could have happened some other way, of course, but I am certain that it has happened. This is just logical in my opinion.

 

I don't think bigfoot DNA would prove them to be human, but let's say it did. I don't think that we would include them in our society in any way. What I mean is that they would have laws passed to protect them just like any other wild animal, but that would be it. They may have "preserves" set up, but there would be no effort to relocate them or anything. Even if their DNA proved they were close to humans, they don't behave like humans in most respects. They likely don't have a language, and are not very advanced at all. They don't even appear to have the most basic social institutions, and seem to be nomadic as opposed to settling down into villages or tribes. Granted, a potential requirement for settling down into communities is often farming. Hunter gatherers have notoriously been nomadic, although they have existed in larger groups than what sasquatch seem to congregate in. Because of this, and many other reasons, I just doubt that sasquatch are all that intelligent. I suppose they are smarter than all other animals aside from humans, but most of this intelligence is based on their ability to manipulate THEIR environment. Outside of their environment I don't think they would seem all that intelligent.

Let's say someone had one as a pet. I would think it would be smarter than any other primate, such as a pet monkey, but I don't think you could get it to be "civilized." Remember the Zana story? IF that is real, it is quite interesting, and gives insight into exactly what I am referring to. She could "halfway" be domesticated, but mostly hung on to her "wild" side. I personally do not believe that killing bigfoot would be considered murder in the same way that we think of it with humans. Killing one, after their discovery of course, would likely carry weighty penalties, but would not be considered "murder." It will be easier for us as a whole to think of sasquatch as being non-human, no matter what their DNA says, because of the lifestyle they live, and because of our past interaction with them...The past interaction is basically non-existent, and people will take that into consideration. I just doubt that the majority will consider them human, because of their looks, the way they live, and the other things I've mentioned. But I don't think we will have such a problem to debate, because I don't think their DNA will prove them to be human.

[norseman]

   I'm wondering if anyone out there has really put any thought into what may /will happen if Bigfoot's existence is proven? By this i mean its affect on the economy, politically, scientifically, and etc. If it were proven to be an actual living creature, would it halt America's logging industry in order to prevent its extinction since we would not have any actual numbers on how many are living? If that would occur, would it send our economy and housing back into another recession ? On a side note, I feel that IF the government does know the truth about Bigfoot I feel that this would be one of the main reasons to keep it a secret from the general public. 

 

  Politically, would it be considered human if DNA testing presented this? Does it mean that "human" laws would be shared with Bigfoot? Would it be legal to have relations with a Bigfoot (sick thought I know), Would killing a Bigfoot be considered murder by law? I feel that it would cause quite a stir and a lot of ethical and moral chaos among states, lobbyists, and politicians defining where Bigfoot stops being animal and starts being "human".

 

   These are just some of my thoughts and was really curious as to what others thought regarding this matter. Maybe raise further issues that have not been thought of also.  I think a lot of people are hell bent on proving its existence but not much thought has been given to what happens afterwards.

 

Food for thought.

 

 

 

 

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=126146&page=1

 

If humans are willing to extend their rights to other primates? I don't think it's much of a stretch for this to be extended to a upright walking primate no matter where they fall into the leafy evolution tree.

 

But we have to get there first.

 

Which requires killing one and providing it's body to science as proof, or finding DNA in some other less intrusive way. Right now Sasquatch does not exist.

 

Until this hurdle is overcome, I think this is just a conversation that is chasing its tail...........we can logically project responses to outcomes but nothing more.

[Guest]

Many people will not like this, but here goes! I am out to kill one! There, I said it, I have my eye on one and one of these days soon, I will harvest it and become rich! I don't care about any fame however, if it is going to take a body to make non believers believe, then I'm the man! I'm not quite sure yet what I will do after I pull the trigger and drop the thing, but I'll worry about that later. I'll probably have to call a tow truck to get it out of the woods but it can be done. And to answer the question, if they shut down logging because of an owl, I'm quite sure bigfoot would take a bigger stand!

[norseman]

Yah Salmonmatt!

 

Take the money and start a Squatch conservation fund with the money.

[dmaker]

" fill in the fossil record (which, contrary to the skeptics, already has plausible ancestors that we've found)" -DWA

 

Indeed, but of those plausible ancestors ( I'm assuming you mean specifically G.Blacki) how much evidence is there that G.Blacki was ever in North America? I'll answer that one....none.  So not sure what the fossil record of a bamboo eating ape in Asia has to do with Bigfoot existing in North America. 

 

I think by fill in the fossil record you mean find any fossil record at all that supports Bigfoot.

 

========================================================================================================

Back to the OP. I posted a similar hypothetical in a thread back in March I think. Where I posed the question of the public safety and legal ramifications if Bigfoot were to be proven and to be "human".  How would the laws handle this? A giant human that runs around breaking all sorts of trespass, assault, theft,...well, you name it...laws? 

Edited September 18, 2013 by dmaker

[southernyahoo]

I've thought about it plenty Crypto Eddie, and don't disagree with you at all as to the challenge in determining what set of rights we would grant this being.

 

If we suddenly acknowledged it's presence in nearly every state, then it would be hard to say that it's habitat is in great danger as it would be obvious they are very adaptable to different environments.  The lack of data on any deaths due to encroachment and lack of data on localized population numbers would make it difficult to list them as an endangered species too. So I think there would be more effort spent on not overreacting to the whole matter.

 

 Their being human certainly would tangle things up. Whatever right we grant them, other people would want the same right, which would include roaming the countryside with immunity to the laws we abide by. 

[dmaker]

" Their being human certainly would tangle things up. Whatever right we grant them, other people would want the same right, which would include roaming the countryside with immunity to the laws we abide by. "

 

^ This, that is the tangle that I was talking about. I can't even begin to imagine how that would be handled. I can't imagine a new code of law that allows for a classification like sub-human or near-human, or human hybrid or anything like that.  Thankfully, I don't ever see that being an issue. IF..BIG IF..Sasquatch was ever discovered, I don't see it being at all human. 

[TD-40]

I think it would be equivalent to NASA announcing they found an extinct microbe on some other planet or moon. Life in outer space!

 

Bigfoot's proven existence would be THAT huge. Worldwide news in less than 12 hours. It'd be the biggest anthropological news announcement in hundreds of years.

 

Yes, I think it would be huge. Clear video, a blood sample, a body, etc. Whatever it takes. The scientific community would be rocked.

[Guest Urkelbot]

They would be popular attractions at zoos, if enough were caught. But I suppose they would be hiding the whole time and you wouldn't get to see them anyway.

[Drew]

Oh there would still be the Illegal Pet Trade.   And China would probably covet their Gall Bladders or something.

[southernyahoo]

" Their being human certainly would tangle things up. Whatever right we grant them, other people would want the same right, which would include roaming the countryside with immunity to the laws we abide by. "

 

^ This, that is the tangle that I was talking about. I can't even begin to imagine how that would be handled. I can't imagine a new code of law that allows for a classification like sub-human or near-human, or human hybrid or anything like that.  

 

 

Do you think that problem might be so tuff that our government would stick it's head in the sand on the issue? I can't imagine BF not winding up in some subhuman classification when scientists have proposed in the past that chimps should be classified in the genus homo.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0520_030520_chimpanzees.html